It seemed like fairy land, as we sat there in Dresden. The evenings were soft and balmy, the very perfection of summer weather. The terrace is quite high above the river, and you look up and down it for a long distance. The city lies to the left, below you, and the towers rise so prettily—precisely as in a picture. This air of the culture of centuries lies over everything, and the soft and lazy atmosphere lulls the soul to rest. We used to walk until we came to the Belvidere, which is a large restaurant with a gallery up-stairs running all round it. There was a band of music, and here we sat and took our tea, and spent two or three hours, always. The moonlight, the river flowing along and spanned with beautiful bridges, the thousands of lamps reflected in it and trembling across the water and under the arches, the infinity of little steamers and wherries sailing to and fro and brilliantly lighted up, the music, and the throngs of people passing slowly by, put one into a delicious and bewildered sort of state, and one feels as if this world were heaven!
The day after we arrived we went, of course, to the picture gallery, and here I was entirely taken by surprise. Nothing one reads or hears gives one the least idea of the magnificence of the pictures there. I never knew what a picture was before. The softness and richness of the colouring, and their exquisite beauty, must be seen to be understood. The Sistine Madonna fills one with rapture. It is perfectly glorious, and one can't imagine how the mind of man could have conceived it. One sees what a flight it was after looking at all the other Madonnas in the Gallery, many of which are wonderful. But this one soars above them all. Most of the Madonnas look so stiff, or so old, or so matronly, or so expressionless, or, at best, as in Corregio's Adoration of the Shepherds (a magnificent picture), the rapture of the mother only is expressed in the face. In the Sistine Madonna the virgin looks so young and innocent—so virgin-like—not like a middle-aged married woman. The large, wide-open blue eyes have a dewy look in them, as if they had wept many tears, and yet such an innocence that it makes you think of a baby whom you have comforted after a violent fit of crying. The majesty of the attitude, and the perfect repose of the face, upon which is a look of waiting, of ineffable expectancy, are very striking. Mr. T. B. says it looked to him as though she had been overwhelmed at the tremendous dignity that had been put upon her, and was yet lost in the awe of it—which I think an exquisite idea. St. Sixtus, who is kneeling on the right of the virgin, has an expression of anxious solicitude on his features. He is evidently interceding with her for the congregation toward whom his right hand is outstretched, for this picture was intended to be placed over an altar. The only fault to be found with the picture, I think, is in the face of Santa Barbara, who kneels on the left. She looks sweetly down upon the sinners below, but with a slight self-consciousness. The two cherubs underneath are exquisite. Their little round faces wear an exalted look, as if their eyes fully took in the august pair to whom they are upturned. The background of the picture—all of the faces of angels cloudily painted—gives the finishing touch to this astounding creation. But you must see it to realize it.
Since my return I have finally decided to take private lessons of Kullak. Kullak is a very celebrated teacher, and plays splendidly himself, I am told, though he doesn't give concerts any more. He used to be court pianist here, and has had so much experience in teaching that I hope a good deal from him, though I don't believe he will equal our little Tausig, capricious and ill-regulated though he is. Never shall I forget the iron way he used to stand over those girls, his hand clenched, determined to make them do it! No wonder they played so! They didn't dare not to. He told one of the class that "it was in me, and he could knock it out of me if he had chosen to keep on with me." And I know he could—and that is what distracts me!
But just think what a way to behave—to leave his conservatory so, at a day's notice, in holiday time, without even informing his teachers! He left everything to be attended to by Beringer. Many of the scholars are very poor, and have made a great effort to get here in order to learn his method. Off he went like a shot, because he suddenly got disgusted with teaching, and he hasn't told a soul where he was going, or how long he intended to remain away. He wrote to Bechstein, the great piano-maker here, "I am going away—away—away." He wouldn't condescend to say more. Mr. Beringer has been to his house to see him on business connected with the conservatory, but he was flown, and his housekeeper told Beringer that both letters and telegrams had come for Tausig, and she did not know where to send them. Did you ever hear of such a capricious creature? I was so provoked at him that after the first week I ceased to grieve over his departure. One cannot rely on these great geniuses, but I hope that, as Kullak makes a business of teaching, and not of playing, more is to be gained from him. At any rate, he will not be off on these long absences.
I am just studying my first concerto. It is Beethoven's C minor, and it is extremely beautiful. Mr. Beringer tells me that two years is too short a time to make an artist in; and indeed one does not know how extremely difficult it is until one tries it. He plays splendidly himself, and is to make his début in the Gewandhaus in Leipsic, this October. The best orchestra in Germany is there. Tausig has turned out five artists from his conservatory this summer. Time will show if any of them become first class.
Aunt H. was right in thinking that this would be one of the most dreadful wars that ever was, though she needn't be anxious on my account. The Prussians are winning everything, and are pushing on for Paris as hard as they can go. They have just taken Chalons. The battles have been terrible, and immense numbers have been killed and wounded on both sides. They have really fought to the death. The spirit of the two peoples seems to me entirely different. The French seem only to be possessed by a mad thirst for glory, and manifest a blood-thirstiness which is perfectly appalling. One reads the most revolting stories in the papers about their creeping around the battle-field after the battle is over, and killing and robbing the wounded Prussians, cutting out their tongues and putting out their eyes. The Prussians are so on the alert now, however, that I hope few such things can take place. One Prussian writes that he was lying wounded upon the field of battle, and another man was not far off in the same helpless condition, when an old Frenchman came up and clove this other man's head with a hatchet. The first screamed loudly for help, when a party of Prussians rushed up and rescued him, and overtook the old man, and shot him. We hear every day of some dreadful thing. O.'s cousin, who is just my age, and is three years married, has lost her husband, her favorite brother is fatally wounded with three balls and lies in the hospital, and her second brother has a shot in each leg and they don't know whether he will ever be able to walk again. He is a young fellow nineteen years old.
In the first days after the war was declared, I felt as if no punishment could be too hot for Napoleon. The people just gave up everything, and stood in the streets all day long on each side of the railroad track. The trains passed every fifteen minutes, packed with the brave fellows who were going off to lose their lives on a mere pretext. Then there would be one continual cheering all along as they passed, and all the women would cry, and the men would execrate Napoleon. The Prussians don't seem to have any feelings of revenge, but regard the French as a set of lunatics whom they are going to bring to reason. The hatred of Napoleon is intense. They regard him as the leader of a people whom he has willfully blinded, and are determined to make an end of him, if possible. The Prussian army is such a splendid one that it is difficult to imagine that it can be overcome. You see everybody under a certain age is liable to be drafted, and no one is allowed to buy a substitute. So everybody is interested. Bismarck has two sons who are common soldiers, and all the ministers together have twelve sons in the war. Then the King and the Crown Prince being with the army, gives a great enthusiasm. The Crown Prince has distinguished himself, and seems to have great military ability. The King was very angry with Prince Friedrich Carl, because in the last battle he exposed one regiment so that it was completely mowed down. Only two or three men escaped. But it makes one groan for the poor Frenchmen when one sees these terrible great cannon passing by. The largest-sized ones were ordered for the storming of Metz, and each one requires twenty-four horses to draw it!